TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- University of Alabama Student Recreation Center summer patrons know that when the fall semester rolls around, their favorite machines and equipment immediately lose that precious availability they see when the students are away.

Now that the semester has arrived, the Rec Center has seen its annual surge in patron population, with numbers reaching as many as 4,000 people using the facility per day.

University Recreation director George Brown says that figure only gets higher as the raw university population continues to grow each year, but the Rec Center staff is prepared for the influx.

Below, Brown talks about how physical fitness enhances academic performance, meeting the facility's substantial demand and plans for a new Rec Center location on campus.

Ben Flanagan: This, the start of the spring semester and the days leading up to Spring Break are typically the busiest for you. How do you prepare for the onslaught each time it happens?

George Brown: The biggest difference now as the university has grown is that every program area of University Recreation now is candidly much more decentralized, and so they have their own training protocols that they do. Intramurals will do close to a week just to get ready for the number of teams they're going to get, whether it's flag football or basketball, whatever the sport. They're going to prepare their event assistants, their supervisors -- whatever nuance of their program, they're training them over an expanded period of time. Same with club sports, same with outdoor. Any of the specialty programs now has their own training protocol. In the name of keeping the building open as much as we can, we only can really devote the better part of an afternoon on a Sunday to do that. Last Sunday, we had a Week of Welcome event that night, and we did an emphasis program. What we've learned to do in that is to not take away from what all the program areas are doing with their very specific how-to training -- whether it's intramurals, outdoor or clubs. They're going to have a very unique skill-set needed for that.

What we try to do is find a common area of emphasis, and that common area this year was customer service. Just point blank, we needed to know that every one of our areas was doing an extraordinary job of meeting and greeting and making the people who utilize our facilities and programs feel wanted. So we devoted our training over that period of time to in-services and updates. We made it competitive and fun. We emphasized customer service to try and drill home how pervasive that was in terms of everybody's job.

BF: How do you think the student staff handles the surge each year?

GB: We're in the process of evaluating that right now because we're just a few days into the true start of the semester. One of the things we ask our professional staff to do is be on heightened readiness. We know that, even with some of our seasoned student veterans that work in the front line, they're going to be confronted with a question they probably weren't prepared for. So we ask that our professional staff be very accessible. That means they're here in the facility longer hours than they may work later in the semester. That's something they know they have to accommodate for just with the rhythm of the start of the year.

The other thing is we try very hard to get our student staff to feel very comfortable about circling back to us and saying "I had this situation..." or "What if this situation occurs?" We want them to begin to forge a real dialogue that says as opposed to always being reactive to the problems, they're being somewhat proactive to it. Part of that is created by very good training that goes on before this all starts. If they get a trust factor here, there's a stronger sense that the students will come to the professional staff, the professional staff will be proximate, and then maybe we can troubleshoot something before it gets really bad.

Patrons frequently use the Rec Center walking/running track if treadmills are taken in the cardio area. (Ben Flanagan/al.com)

BF: Why should students take advantage of the Rec Center and make fitness a priority in their daily lives while in school?

GB: It's incredibly important. With as many students as we're hearing are arriving to the Capstone for the first time, obviously they are looking to make that connection. And one of the connections that we believe fundamentally will enhance their academic experience is that of being physically active. The Rec Center and the associated facilities within University Recreation offer absolutely the best opportunity for students to get engaged in a healthy lifestyle. As we all know, a lot of it is clearly a case of "If I get involved with this now, I've got to stay with it for the time that I'm here." And that creates a healthier lifestyle that's conducive to academic success.

BF: There is talk about the Rec Center growing on campus and building a second location. What can you tell us about that?

GB: Fortunately, it has jumped through the hoops and hurdles of Board of Trustee approval for the funding. The new North Campus Student Center will be located where the current Rose Towers residence hall is. Rose Towers is anticipated to come offline in the next year. It'll have one more year of service and finish up in May 2012. At that point, there will be an almost immediate demolition and construction of the second residence hall unit to mirror the current one that's going up right now at that location. What will happen from a recreation standpoint will be a dining facility, an approximately 60,000-square-foot rec center, and housing offices will be relocated to that location. That will be embedded somewhere in between these two larger residence halls.

The rec center will be smaller than what we currently have -- we're roughly about 190,000 square-feet here. It will clearly service that population on that part of campus. The way it will be configured, it will be be much more conducive to a residence hall population. We anticipate with the growth of campus that this will be highly utilized by those probably 5,550-plus students who will reside in the residence halls there.

BF: When it gets this busy, members might have trouble finding an available treadmill, elliptical machines and other equipment. The demand seems very high for what the Rec offers. Is that a good problem for you to have?

GB: I think so. When you're in the midst of that demand, the supply issue is challenging. Anybody would tell you, from a customer service standpoint, you don't want to acknowledge to a patron that they may have to wait 5-15 minutes for a piece of equipment, or because of the demand and the use, the equipment may fail occasionally and may need servicing. Those are not problems from a customer service standpoint that we like to address. But I think realistically when you talk about the idea that you're at a point in your business model where you have that kind of credibility and reputation, I would say on a campus with this kind of growth, this is kind of a good problem to have. I think the key to this problem is how we address and recognize that supply and demand issue before it becomes so acute that you literally are turning people away. We saw that in the early 2000s. We knew that in '99-2000 we had an issue with size, and we built something that was completed in '04. We're now seven years down the road from that. I think we're wise enough to know that we have to be mindful of not getting to a point where we're racing to catch up. And quite frankly, we're close.

BF: It hasn't been long since this facility underwent a $24 million renovation. How do you think the Rec has aged since then, and it what ways do you think it will grow from here?

GB: That's a good question. It's one thing in our field you have to be very mindful of. Let me just say that the Rec Center as we know it and live in it today is a three generation building. We're coming up on a 30 year anniversary. We're going to celebrate that to some degree in the next year. I think given the fact that the Rec Center has gone through these iterations it's been a remarkably resilient facility. I will completely thank the people who work in here on a day-to-day basis, but I also want to thank the people who actually use this facility every day because there is a sense of pride and ownership. The only way this facility can look and be the way it is today is because people take care of it. Literally, the patrons and staff are all committed to making sure the facility is working, clean and safe. It's as modern and contemporary as can be.

I really, truly believe that it is a team project. I think in terms of where it's going, I think it has to grow. We have some pivotal moments coming in the next three to five years -- not only with the opening of the North Campus facility. Clearly, we've got a situation here just because of the raw population growth that UA is undergoing. Whether or not we'll stop at 35,000, we've got to recognize that there's potential that we'll grow beyond that. Keeping that in mind, I think we have to grow the Rec Center. I've recently been very excited about some movement that appears to be occurring with the master plan that suggests a relocation of the Aquatic Center to our property. Given that potential and what we know will happen with the claiming of the Bryce [Hospital] property for outdoor recreational space, I think the future is extraordinarily bright for University Rec. I can't help but tell you that I believe this administration recognizes the importance of recreation.

BF: Are you noticing any workout trends among students and other members so far?

GB: The biggest trends that we're seeing in terms of workout profile is the desire for students to get personal training in groups. We're now seeing more and more students who genuinely want to have a personal training consultation or workout plan, but they want to do it with their friends. This is an emerging market for us. We've created a program called AM2, or Achieve More 2gether. That program is the brainchild of our fitness and personal training staff. What it's doing is allowing for a cost-effective way for groups of three to six people -- students, faculty/staff, combinations of the above -- to essentially get a workout that is both cardio and strength training-based that allows for that dynamic functional movement. Clearly, CrossFit set the bar. But with CrossFit, there's always challenges about safety and reliability of the workout. In this environment, it's much more controlled. We know from a safety protocol that we're giving a really high intensity 40-45-minute workout very much modeled along the CrossFit lines but in a group setting. And I think this is really a marquee program for us.

BF: What is the typical "student" problem is with working out properly?

GB: Two-fold. One, consistency. Clearly, we've seen that with students there is a lack of consistency. New school ethic, New Year's resolution ethic, that exuberance and excitement about staying involved in it tends to wane relatively quickly. We need to find a way to keep people motivated to stay in a workout profile longer. Some of that's creativity on our part, some of that's reinforcement on their part, knocking down barriers, etc.

The second thing is more in line with what I think you're asking, and that's a technique question. The biggest problem we have is that students fundamentally jump into a workout without knowing what they're doing. This is because the parcel of 18-24-year-olds generally do not want to ask a lot of questions. You tend to have a feeling and opinion that you know what you're doing. For some, that's true. For many, that's not. What we would graciously ask is that these students come forward, or we in turn may be more proactive about assisting them in terms of some of the technique flaws. The problem with poor technique is that it tends to lead to the first problem. It tends to lead to them stopping the workout because they find that they get hurt, or they get dissatisfied because the don't see the results that they want.

Working out, physical activity, exercise is a long-term proposition. There is no get-rich-quick scheme. Whether it's weight loss or strength training or weight adding, any of those dimensions of health and well-being take consistency and proper technique. I think those are the two things that we really have to try to enforce and reinforce with our students.

UA Rec Center starts semesterThe University of Alabama Student Recreation Center sees as many as 4,000 people per day. Recreation director George Brown, staff supervisor Tucker Burke and student patron Matthew Drory talk about starting the fall semester and why fitness must be a priority for students.